


I Still Come Back to You

by ivory_leigh



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Confessions, Fix-It, Gen, Light Angst, aziraphale is an idiot but we love him anyway, like a paragraph of angst, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivory_leigh/pseuds/ivory_leigh
Summary: “You said,” Aziraphale began, and then stopped, cleared his throat. “You said you’d changed your mind about leaving. That you’d—just lost your best friend.” He looked back up, his face open and vulnerable in a way Crowley had only seen a handful of times in all their years of togetherness, and asked, “Was that… were you talking about… me?”





	I Still Come Back to You

**Author's Note:**

> [Перевод на русский](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180165) с [Algarifma ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Algarifma/pseuds/Algarifma)

There was a knock at the door. Crowley groaned and blessed under his breath, pulling the pillow over his head, and the knock came again, a little more insistently. “ _What_?” 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice asked. “Crowley, are you awake? I need to speak with you.” 

“Look, I know you lot don’t go in for the whole sleep thing but I  _ do.  _ Can’t it wait until morning?” 

“No,” Aziraphale said, “I’m afraid it really can’t.” Crowley groaned again and rolled over onto his back, one arm flung across his eyes. 

“Alright,” he said at last. “Come in. Door’s open.” Aziraphale appeared in the doorway, missing his shoes and camelhair coat but otherwise still fully dressed. Crowley could hear the antique watch in his waistcoat pocket ticking away. “What’s the matter, angel?” 

There was a silence, and Crowley looked up to see Aziraphale gone pink in the moonlight, gaze carefully averted from where Crowley was lying half-naked and tangled in Egyptian cotton sheets. “I’m sorry, I should let you get dressed—” 

“Aziraphale, it’s three in the bloody morning. I’m not getting dressed. Now either say what you need to say or get out.” 

Aziraphale paused for a moment and then cleared his throat, hands lacing together in front of him the way he only did when he was nervous. “Yes, I, er… I was thinking about what happened yesterday in the restaurant, and I just wanted to ask…” His fingers tightened just a little. “Was that me you were talking about?” 

Crowley blinked. “At the restaurant?” He couldn’t remember being at a restaurant, but then again the whole day was little more than a blur of increasingly horrible events—the bookshop, the M25, the army air base, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the devil himself emerging in a rush of fire and brimstone and parental guilt. He could have hit the Queen of England with his car and not remember it. “Which restaurant?” 

Aziraphale shrugged, hands still intertwined. “I don’t know, some little hole in the wall. You were drinking? I’d just been discorporated?” 

“Yeah,” he said. He did have a vague recollection of drinking scotch out of a dirty glass and crying. “What about it?” 

“Were you talking about me when you said—” Aziraphale stopped short, mouth turning down around the edges. “Well, I mean, you know. When you said all that.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“My dear, please!” Aziraphale crossed his arms over himself, looking wretched, and Crowley sat up in bed. “I’m not in the mood to be teased.” 

“I don’t  _ remember _ what I said, angel. A lot of things happened yesterday.” 

Aziraphale opened his mouth and then snapped it closed again, suddenly terribly interested in the carpet. “You said,” he began, and then stopped, cleared his throat. “You said you’d changed your mind about leaving. That you’d—just lost your best friend.” He looked back up, his face open and vulnerable in a way Crowley had only seen a handful of times in all their years of togetherness, and asked, “Was that… were you talking about… me?” 

Crowley could have laughed. He very well might have laughed except Aziraphale was so serious, so anxious, his arms folded tight against his chest as he waited for an answer. “Of course I was talking about you. Who else would it be?” 

The angel did not look reassured. If anything, he looked more afraid. “Do you—do you really still think that? Even after all those things I said?” 

Crowley squinted at him. “What things?” 

“The whole bit about… about my not even liking you. About not caring if you left.” 

“Oh,” Crowley said. He’d—forgotten about that. Or, not forgotten, exactly, but assumed that after everything they’d been through they could just skip right over that part and go back to the way they’d been before, miracled back together like the Bently and the bookshop. “Well, I…  s‘pose that depends. I did do a lot of yelling about heading to the stars without you and never even thinking about you again.” 

Aziraphale’s face relaxed a little, broke slowly into a smile. “You know,” he murmured, “after you yelled that on the street and drove off, somebody stopped me and said, ‘You’re really just better off without him.’ But I knew that wasn’t true.” Aziraphale at him, looked  _ into  _ him, something bright and earnest in his eyes. “I knew that wherever I was, heaven or hell or earth or Alpha Centauri, I would be better if you were there beside me.” 

Crowley had very suddenly forgotten how to breathe, had forgotten that he didn’t need to breathe in the first place. Aziraphale crossed the space between them and perched on the very edge of Crowley’s bed. “I’m glad you came back for me,” the angel whispered. “I’m glad that if the world ended it would have ended with you by my side.”

“I wasn’t really going to leave you,” he said, a little too fast. “I know I said I was leaving but I—I wasn’t. I couldn’t.” And then, because it was late and they’d almost died and Crowley was a little bit drunk on leftover bravery he said, “When I thought I’d lost you, it, it  _ broke _ me, Aziraphale. Your shop was on fire and I couldn’t find you and I just kept thinking, what’s the point, then? What’s the  _ point _ of saving the world if my best friend isn’t in it? And then when you came back I realized I could—I could face down Armageddon if I was with you. I could face all the armies of heaven and hell, but I couldn’t spend the rest of eternity without ever seeing you again.” 

Aziraphale was tremulous. He was beaming. He looked like maybe for the first time in a long time he wasn’t afraid. “Well,” he said at last, and his voice shook. “Well. I guess that settles it, then.” 

Crowley leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and smiled. “Do you want to be my best friend, angel?” 

The look Aziraphale gave him was warm and fond and deeply, quietly moved, and Crowley tried to memorize it, tried to commit to memory the dark lines and soft shadows and high splotches of light. It was a look he’d never seen before. It was a look he hoped he’d see again. “Only,” Aziraphale said softly, “if you want to be mine.” 


End file.
